Blueberry Muffins

Don't kid yourself that these are healthy...

I pretty much avoid fruit at all costs, but with the whole veggie baby thing in mind, it can’t be a bad thing if it makes more of an appearance in my diet. Which is why I try to hide it in things.

Makes 12 sugar-laden goodies! or 6 regular muffin-size ones.

Ingredients
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh, canned or frozen blueberries
Streusel topping (if you don’t mess it up like I did)

Method
1. Heat oven to about 200C. Put muffin cups in each whole of two muffin trays, or you can grease them thoroughly… but who would want to wash them?

2. Make Streusel Topping, set aside.

3. Beat milk, oil and eggs in large bowl with whisk. Stir in flour, sugar and salt all at once until flour is moistened. The batter will be lumpy, and that’s cool. Just don’t over-mix.

4. Fold in blueberries, then divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle each with 1 tablespoon topping.

5. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. If baked in greased pans, let stand about 5 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely.

Streusel Topping.
1/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons firm butter

Method
Cut butter into ingredients, or rub in with your fingertips until it is crumbly.

Now if you’ve a serious butter addiction, like myself, you will put too much in and ruin the streusel. Instead of being a nice crumbly topping that bakes into a lovely crunch, mine was goo. brown, sugary goo.

Still tastes good, though.

Roasted Vegetable Lasagna

Welcome to my first kitchen fail.

Well, not ever, of course. There’s been plenty of those!

So I had the lasagna in the oven, and everything was smelling good.
The veggies had roasted perfectly, the sauce was lovely and rich, and the bechamel was thick and just right. Everything fit in the pan, and the cheese on top was just getting to that golden melty stage. Perfection!

It wasn’t until about ten minutes later that I realised all the gloriously roasted vegetables were still sitting on a tray in the griller, keeping warm, and NOT in my fabulously constructed lasagna, bubbling merrily away in the oven. Where they should be. Oops.

So with the help of a barbecue flip, a handy plate and a bemused Veggie Husband looking on and more making fun of me than helping, I peeled back the first layer, jammed the veggies in all nice and snug, layered the now-mixed saucy, cheesy, pasta layers back over, dumped some cheese on top and voila! Nobody need know.
see how pretty it looks? mmmm

Anything can be saved in my kitchen!

Ok so for the recipe. I actually tried to pay attention to this, as I never normally measure anything. All veggie strips should be about 1cm thick.

Ingredients
1 large eggplant, cut into strips
1 medium sweet potato, cut into strips
2 zucchinis, cut into strips (I only used one today)
Instant lasagna sheets
TOMATO SAUCE:
2 onions, diced,
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small capsicum/bell pepper, diced
2 400g cans diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon sambal oelek (you can omit this if you want, I just like mine with a kick)
1/4 cup chicken stock (mine is vegetarian)
1 teaspoon of sugar… don’t forget this! very important.
salt, pepper
1 teaspoon each of dried oregano and basil. you can also layer fresh basil in with your veggies. Yum!
BECHAMEL SAUCE:
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
a pinch of salt and pepper
the smallest amount possible of nutmeg. you can add more but i’m a tiny bit afeared of it.
ok.

Method
1. Preheat oven to 220 C. place all veggies onto baking trays, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake about 30-40 minutes, turning halfway, until golden and soft.

Sauce: In a saucepan, saute onion and capsicum in 1 tablespoon olive oil for three or four minutes over medium-high heat. Add garlic and saute one minute more.
add all other sauce ingredients, bring to the boil, then cover and simmer 20 minutes.

Bechamel Sauce: Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and cook, stirring for one minute, to cook all the raw taste out of the flour.
Add the milk, stirring all the time.

bring to the boil, stirring often. It should be lovely, thick and lump free after about 10 minutes.

Assembly: spray a lasagna pan and ladle some tomato sauce on the bottom. Make a layer of pasta, tomato sauce, vegetables, then bechamel. DON’T melt and forget the vegetables here, like I did.
Keep alternating, ending with bechamel and a good sprinkling of cheese.

See? Ultimate lasagna betrayal. It looked so good I had no idea roasted vegetable lasagna could be so devoid of roasted vegetables.

Bake in 200 C oven about 30-40 minutes.

omnomnom.